In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Moirai ()often known in English as the Fateswere the personifications of destiny. In certain accounts, they were considered as three sisters: Clotho (the spinner), Lachesis (the allotter), and Atropos (the inevitable, a metaphor for death), though their number and names varied over time according to the author. Their Roman equivalents are the Parcae.Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Parcae.
The role of the Moirai was to ensure that every being, mortal and divine, lived out their destiny as it was assigned to them by the laws of the universe. For mortals, this destiny spanned their entire lives and was represented as a thread spun from a spindle. Often, they were considered to be above even the other gods in their role as enforcers of fate.
The concept of a universal principle of natural order and balance has been compared to similar concepts in other cultures such as the Vedic Ṛta, the Avestan Asha (Arta), and the Egyptian Maat.
Etymology
The word Moirai, also spelled Moirae or Mœræ,Moirai in Collins English Dictionary comes from , which means "lots, destinies, apportioners". It also means a portion or lot of the whole. It is related to meros, "part, lot" and moros, "fate, doom". The possible derived Latin meritum, "reward", English merit, maybe coming from the Proto-Indo-European language root *(s)mer, "to allot, assign".
In addition, Moira may mean
portion or share in the distribution of booty (, , "equal booty"), portion in life, lot, destiny, (, , "the immortals fixed the destiny"),Odyssey 19.152: Lidell, op.cit. death (, , "destiny of death"), portion of the distributed land.The citizens of Sparta were called omoioi (equals), indicating that they had equal parts ("isomoiria" ἰσομοιρία) of the allotted land mete and right (, , "according to fate, in order, rightly").Iliad 16.367: Lidell, op.cit.
Cross-cultural parallels European goddesses
The three Moirai are known in English as the Fates. This derives from Roman mythology, in which they are the Parcae or Fata, plural of ,Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. "fate", "fairy". meaning prophetic declaration, oracle, or destiny; euphemistically, the "sparing ones". There are other equivalents that descend from the Proto-Indo-European culture.
In Norse mythology the Norns are a trio of female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, twining the thread of life. They set up the laws and decided on the lives of the children of men.Völuspá 20; cf. Henry Adams Bellows' translation for The American-Scandinavian Foundation with clickable names (online text).
Their names were Urðr, related with Old English wyrd, modern weird ("fate, destiny, luck"), Verðandi, and Skuld, and it has often been concluded that they ruled over the past, present and future respectively, based on the sequence and partly the etymology of the names, of which the first two (literally 'Fate' and 'Becoming') are derived from the past and present stems of the verb verða, "to be", respectively, and the name of the third one means "debt" or "guilt", originally "that which must happen".Online Etymology Dictionary, s. v. "shall". In younger legendary sagas, the Norns appear to have been synonymous with witches (völvas), and they arrive at the birth of the hero to shape his destiny.Nordisk familjebook (1913). Uggleupplagan. 19. Mykenai-Newpada. (online text).
Many other cultures included trios of goddesses associated with fate or destiny. The Celtic Matres and Matrones, female deities almost always depicted in groups of three, have been proposed as connected to the Norns.
In Lithuanian and other Baltic mythologies, the goddess Laima is the personification of destiny, and her most important duty was to prophesy how the life of a newborn will take place.Greimas Algirdas Julien (1992). Of gods and men. Studies in Lithuanian Mythology. Indiana University Press, p. 111. .Related to "Iaksmlka", "mark, sign or token" (Rigveda X, 71,2): Monier Williams. Sanskrit-English Dictionary. With her sisters Kārta and Dēkla, she is part of a trinity of fate deities similar to the Moirai.Bojtar Endre (1999). Foreword to the past. A cultural history of Baltic people. CEU Press, p. 301. . In Hurrian mythology the three goddesses of fate, the Hutena, were believed to dispense good and evil, life and death to humans.
Later European culture In Dante's Divine Comedy, the Fates are mentioned in both Inferno (XXXIII.126) and Purgatorio (XXI.25–27, XXV.79–81) by their Greek names, and their traditional role in measuring out and determining the length of human life is assumed by the narrator.
In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the Weird Sisters (or Three Witches) are prophetesses who are deeply rooted in both the real and supernatural worlds. Their creation was influenced by British folklore, witchcraft, and the legends of the Norns and the Moirai. Hecate, the chthonic Greek goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and three-way crossroads, appears as the master of the Three Witches. In ancient Greek religion, Hecate as goddess of childbirth is identified with Artemis,William Arthur Heidel (1929). The Day of Yahweh: A Study of Sacred Days and Ritual Forms in the Ancient Near East, p. 514. American Historical Association. who was the leader (ηγεμόνη: hegemone ) of the nymphs.Martin Nilsson (1967). Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion. Vol. 1. C. F. Beck, Munich, p. 499 f.
Outside Europe
The notion of a universal principle of natural order has been compared to similar ideas in other cultures, such as aša (Asha) in Avestan religion, Rta in Vedic religion, and Maat in ancient Egyptian religion.Cf. Ramakrishna (1965:153–168), James (1969:35–36)
In the Avestan religion and Zoroastrianism, aša, is commonly summarized in accord with its contextual implications of "truth", "righteousness", "order". Aša and its Vedic equivalent, Rta, are both derived from a PIE root meaning "properly joined, right, true". The word is the proper name of the divinity Asha, the personification of "Truth" and "Righteousness". Aša corresponds to an objective, material reality which embraces all of existence. This cosmic force is imbued also with morality, as verbal Truth, and Righteousness, action conforming with the moral order.
In the literature of the Mandaeans, an angelic being (Abatur) has the responsibility of weighing the souls of the deceased to determine their worthiness, using a set of scales.
In the Vedic religion, Rta is an ontological principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe. The term is now interpreted abstractly as "cosmic order", or simply as "truth",Mahony (1998:3). although it was never abstract at the time.See the philological work of Own Barfield, e.g Poetic Diction or Speaker's Meaning
It seems that this idea originally arose in the Indo-Aryan period, from a consideration (so denoted to indicate the original meaning of communing with the star beings) of the qualities of nature which either remain constant or which occur on a regular basis.Hermann Oldenberg (1894). Die Religion des Veda. Wilhelm Hertz, Berlin, pp. 30, 195–198.
The individuals fulfill their true natures when they follow the path set for them by the ordinances of Rta, acting according to the Dharma, which is related to social and moral spheres.Brown, W. N. (1992). "Some Ethical Concepts for the Modern World from Hindu and Indian Buddhist Tradition" in: Radhakrishnan, S. (Ed.) Rabindranath Tagore: A Centenary Volume 1861 – 1961. Calcutta: Sahitya Akademi. . The god of the waters Varuna was probably originally conceived as the personalized aspect of the otherwise impersonal Ṛta.Ramakrishna, G. (1965). "Origin and Growth of the Concept of Ṛta in Vedic Literature". Doctoral Dissertation: University of Mysore Cf. The gods are never portrayed as having command over Ṛta, but instead they remain subject to it like all created beings.
In Egyptian religion, maat was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, law, morality, and justice. The word is the proper name of the divinity Maat, who was the goddess of harmony, justice, and truth represented as a young woman.
It was considered that she set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation.Gods and Myths of Ancient Egypt, Robert A. Armour, American Univ in Cairo Press, p167, 2001, Maat was the norm and basic values that formed the backdrop for the application of justice that had to be carried out in the spirit of truth and fairness.
In Egyptian mythology, Maat dealt with the weighing of souls that took place in the underworld. Her feather was the measure that determined whether the souls (considered to reside in the heart) of the departed would reach the paradise of afterlife successfully. In the famous scene of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Anubis, using a scale, weighs the sins of a man's heart against the feather of truth, which represents maat. If man's heart weighs down, then he is devoured by a monster.
The three Moirai
When they were three,The expectation that there would be three was strong by the 2nd century CE: when Pausanias visited the temple of Apollo at Delphi, with Apollo and Zeus each accompanied by a Fate, he remarked "There are also images of two Moirai; but in place of the third Moira there stand by their side Zeus Moiragetes and Apollon Moiragetes." the Moirai were: Clotho (, Greek , , "spinner") spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle. Her Roman equivalent was Nona ("the ninth"), who was originally a goddess called upon in the ninth month of pregnancy. Lachesis (, Greek , , "allotter" or drawer of lots) measured the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod. Her Roman equivalent was Decima ("the tenth"). Atropos (, Greek , , "inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning"Compare the ancient goddess Adrasteia, the "inescapable".) was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of each person's death; and when their time has come, she cut their life-thread with her "abhorred shears"."Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, / And slits the thin spun life." John Milton, Lycidas, l. 75. Her Roman equivalent was Morta ("the dead one").
In the Republic of Plato, the three Moirai sing in unison with the music of the Seirenes. Lachesis sings the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. Pindar in his Hymn to the Fates, holds them in high honour. He calls them to send their sisters, the Hours: Eunomia ("lawfulness"), Dike ("right"), and Eirene ("peace"), to stop the internal civil strife.Pindar, Fragmenta Chorica Adespota 5 (ed. Diehl).
Origins
The figure who came to be known as Atropos had her origins in the pre-Greek Mycenaean religion as a daemon or spirit called Aisa."Not yet is thy fate (moira) to die and meet thy doom" (Ilias 7.52), "But thereafter he (Achilleus) shall suffer whatever Fate (Aisa) spun for him at his birth, when his mother bore him": (Ilias 20.128 ): M. Nilsson. (1967). Die Geschichte der Griechischen Religion Vol I, C.F.Beck Verlag., Műnchen pp. 363–364 Much of the Mycenaean religion survived into classical Greece, but it is not known to what extent classical religious belief is Mycenaean, nor how much is a product of the Greek Dark Ages or later. Moses I. Finley detected only few authentic Mycenaean beliefs in the 8th-century Homeric world.M. I. Finley (2002). The world of Odysseus. New York Review Books, New York, p. 39 f. (PDF file). One such belief was the attribution of unexpected events to spirits or daemons, who appeared in special occurrences. Martin P. Nilsson associated these daemons to a hypothetical Pre-Greek religion.Martin P. Nilsson (1967). Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion. Vol. 1. C. F. Beck, Munich, pp. 361–368.